helenas

Here is an announcement about next sale (from their newsletter): "Our first major Clearance Sale will debut on Wine Library.com next week! Read on . . . Watch for our HUGE Clearance SUPER SALE next week! Save up to 60% off As many of you know, our retail showroom is getting ready to undergo a huge renovation and as a result, we will launch our biggest clearance sale yet for one week only - January 22nd - January 29th! The sale will launch at 10 AM on Wednesday, January 22nd. If you are shopping on our website, look for the huge banner on the top of our home page. If you live in the area, come on down to our retail showroom! We will have special tags set to let you know which items are included in the sale. Shop early and often since wines will sell out very quickly and in most cases limited quantities will be avail! "

Thanks to Suzanne and FG, we're going to JazzStandard this weekend; i love Regina Carter. The reservation is pretty convenient as you can do it online through opentable.com. And they will have Cassandra Wilson in mid-February!

These are the only black peppercorns i use, but i do find that there is a difference between different batches ( i order from zingermans.com or chefshop.com)

This is what i tried to do, after i tasted Marquis Philips Cabernet Sauvignon 2001, and before i read Parker's review. Unfortunatey, many prople read the review and rushed to the store even before me, so all stores in vicinity (and in NJ, as far as i know) are have these wines SOLD OUT. ( i found eventually 3 more bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 )

Today i finally got to make tiella, a gratin of sorts involving layers of potato, mussels and rice. This dish was a reason why i bought a cazuela this summer. I'm probably not the only one who find tiella(tiedda) worth of attention since the recipes for it are offered by Wolfert, LaPlace, Jenkins and Goldstein in their cookbooks. The challenging part is to synchronize the cooking time of the main ingredients and not to dry out the mussels which are precooked. I mainly followed the recipe from "Enoteca" by Joyce Goldstein, who parboils the rice and parcooks potatoes. I used New Zealand mussels, which come frozen in 2lb boxes, but to preserve their juice, i defrosted them in microwave using dry vermouth instead of water in Vino-Vac vessel (the thing that is used for quick marinading and microwave steaming). I roasted sliced red potatoes tossed with olive oil in cazuela, then added the mussel-vermouth broth, some sliced , bacon-fat fried onions on top, roasted it covered, and to finish the dish - put mussels on top of potato/onions layers, next layer - a lot of parsley and then a layer of cooked arborio rice mixed with fried crumbled bacon and pecorino. Now uncovered for some 10 minutes in hot oven - the result was so delicious!

Posted on Jan 8th - Saigon II - new Vietnamese, Lincroft, Monmouth County

Oh, thanks Kim, i eventually will... As for sausages, i bought them in Delicious Orchards. You should really come to check this store!

Yesterday cooked a rabbit sausage stew with red potatoes and creminis. The ginger in sausages was a perfect combination with the somewhat sour broth made of half white wine, half chicken stock. Today - no cooking, as i have a headache of my life (no biggy, i have them quite often )

Villas' book is out (Crazy for Casseroles : 275 All-American Hot-Dish Classics )

The pork chops were served with fried rice, which was very decent. My companion had crispy noodles that were good while crunchy, the thing they lost in sauce (sauce was ok). As for dirt-cheap, i won't say so. It's not a hole-in-the-wall, and as i mentioned the prices are comparable to this kind of establishments around.

They offer fried egg rolls with lettuce in a DIY manner: is it the right way to serve it? There is also quite a selection of pho, which i'll try in my next visit. And you're definitely right about BYO.

I had a quick dinner in the new vietnamese place called Saigon II in Lincroft (GSP exit 109) on Acme plaza. I have no idea how vietnamese food should taste like, but i liked the appetizers we had: spring rolls served with bean sauce were delicious, as well as battered calamari with weet chili sauce. The main course failed to excite though. My companion had a mixed seafood and vegetables stir-fry, which was ok, but my pork chops were burned. Another complain is that portions of side dishes are too big for most people. There are no desserts except for fruit shakes (it's not a complain). The prices are standard for this kind of establishment. I definitely plan to return soon, as i'd like to explore the appetizers more, as well as tofu dishes. They offer takeout. Saigon II 650E Newman Spring Road (Route 520) Lincroft, NJ (732) 933-1964 Open 11am-3pm, 5-9pm

Cabrales, should i read from your post that one shouldn't buy the dried abalone in US asian groceries, ecpecially since it's sold sliced (meaning not whole). It looks pretty, like my favorite dried fish filets...

So what one does with dried abalone?

Parker on Massandra Muscat Livadia: "Could the reason why the Allies (Roosevelt, Churchill, et. al.) capitulated to Stalin, essentially conceding one-half of Europe to him at the 1943 Yalta Conference, have been because they had drunk too much of these wines while holding the conference at the Tsar's former summer palace at Livadia?"

sorry to quote myself, but it's so relevant to the subject - Pila Vecia - rice restaurant, especially the part of the getting this rare rice in US.

"The restaurateur Prue Leith once watched a wretched cookery-school pupil(male, of course) deconstruct the following first line of a recipe:"Sepparate the eggs". For a thoughtful while he pondered the two eggs placed in front of him, before carefully moving one a few inches to his left and the other a few inches to his right. Satisfied, he went on to the second line of instruction" - Julian Barnes "The Land Without Brussels Sprouts"

Can you believe this: There is no entry for Labneh in Larousse Gastronomique Labneh is something that in Middle East they eat with olive oil, zaatar and pita Seriously though, here is the definition: Lebneh: (Alternate spellings: lebne, labne, labneh): Home-made yogurt cheese common in the Middle East.

Just to please Cabby, i underwent the extensive tasting of Georgian wines yesterday and today. And as much as it hurts to admit, my general impression was negative. Way too sweet, whatever flavor was there it was masked by sugar, and one should be in the very nostalgic mode to feel any of this famous Saperavi aroma. Sorry, Alexander Sergeevich (and Cabby)... but on the other hand, one can always trust Shostakovich and Schnittke.

now, if somebody could teach me how to make a greek yogurt (the same as Total) at home...

Robert, olive bread with mortadella?

Some sort of dark european bread, hopefully borodinsky (already started a starter).

when i can't find creme fraiche d'Isigny ( which is pretty much always), i also use the brand that jaybee mentioned. French product is creamier and has less tang probably due to the higher fat content. All the gourmet stores in my part of NJ carry the Vermont creme fraiche, as well as their mascarpone and fromage blanc.

yes, it's generally available, and the tickets (for event itself, with optional wine tasting) can be order online, which i did, thank you very much. This is what i more than sampled for the best part of my life. Massandra is famous for its muscat wines. And Georgian wines can be very good (it's a known fact that Pushkin preferred Kakhetian wines to burgundy). Most of the wines are made from local grape varieties.

Feast and Folly: Cuisine, Intoxication, and the Poetics of the Sublime "What would it mean to speak of cuisine as a "fine art"? Combining an analysis of French cuisine with cutting-edge postmodernist critique, Feast and Folly provides a fascinating history of French gastronomy and cuisine over the past two centuries, as well as considerable detail regarding the preparation of some of the colossal meals described in the book. It offers a deep analysis of the social, political, and aesthetic aspects of cuisine and taste, exploring the conceptual preconditions, the discursive limits, and the poetics and rhetorical forms of the modern culinary imagination. Allen S. Weiss analyzes the structural preconditions of considering cuisine as a fine art, connects the diverse discursive conditions that give meaning to the notion of cuisine as artwork, and investigates the most extreme psychological and metaphysical condition of the aesthetic domain—the sublime—in relation to gastronomy"